Kungfu Tour with Hong Kong and Foshan

In the morning, your tour guide will pick you up from the hotel and then take you to Hong Kong Heritage Museum (closed each Tuesday), where you will see a special exhibition – Bruce Lee: Kung Fu · Art · Life. Undoubtedly, Bruce Lee who passed away in 1973 has been considered to be the most famous international superstar in Kung Fu movies. He was born in San Francisco and grew up in Hong Kong. He began to learn Tai Chi at the age of seven and then learn Wing Chun from Ip Man in 1954. In 1967, he created Jeet Kune Do by himself and became a great Kung Fu master. As a Kung Fu actor, he cut a figure in an American TV series “The Green Hornet” and then became internationally renowned relying on his excellent acting and superb Kung Fu skills in several films, namely Fist of Fury, The Way of The Dragon, and Enter the Dragon. Unfortunately, he died suddenly during the filming of his last movie, Game of Death, in July 1973.

In order to commemorate this great Kung Fu master and Kung Fu movie star, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum together with the Bruce Lee Foundation and a lot of collectors from home and abroad held this Bruce Lee thematic exhibition. More than 600 pieces of precious relics of Bruce Lee are shown to the public, allowing people to known about him comprehensively through his life and films. For example, the private photos with his family members, the nunchakus, sandbag, and protective head gear he ever used to practice Kung Fu, as well as the classic costumes he ever worn in his films are on display. This unique exhibition will give you a full picture of Bruce Lee as a Kung Fu legend.

Then you will take a Kung Fu Class. You will be taught by a Kung Fu master who has the same martial art mentor with Bruce Lee. In this Kung Fu Class, you will study the basic forms of Wing Chun, a kind of traditional Chinese boxing. You will also learn some practical self-defensive techniques and take some amazing pictures of practicing Kung Fu. You can post them on your social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Maybe you will receive a lot of thumbs-ups and followers.

In the afternoon, you will go along the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Shan Tsui to see Bruce Lee’s statue. The bronze statue of Bruce Lee was erected near the waterfront of Victoria Harbor to celebrate what would have been his 65th birthday. The 2-meter tall Bruce Lee statue stands on a granite base, with a total weight of about 3 tons. It shows Bruce Lee’s classic pose of “ready-to-strike” in the movie Fist of Fury. The statue with almost five months’ carving looks vivid and life-like.

Then, Temple Street will be the last attraction of your Hong Kong tour. It is one of the most popular shopping streets and the busiest open-air flea market after dusk in Hong Kong. More than a hundred stalls with colorful lights are lining up on both sides of Temple Street. There is a mix of inexpensive goods ranging from clothes, shoes, and accessories to mobile phones and watches. Cheap second-hand goods such as videotapes, old newspapers, and cassettes also can be found here. If you are interested in something and want to buy it, you can bargain with the stallholder to get a better price.

After a relaxed stroll along Temple Street, you will be transferred to the railway station and head to Foshan by taking the estimated train G6580 20:21/21:51. Your tour guide will be waiting for you at the railway station and pick you up to the hotel for a nice rest.

Temple Street

Avenue of Stars

This morning, you will visit the Ancestral Temple, also known as Foshan Ancestral Temple Museum. It is a well-preserved Daoist temple complex combing traditional architectural art during Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1636-1912) dynasties with folk culture. Covering an area of more than 30,000 square meters, the Ancestral Temple houses the ancient temple buildings, the Confucius Temple, the Wong Fei-hung Memorial Hall, and Ip Man Hall. In particular, the Wong Fei-hung Memorial Hall and Ip Man Hall attract a million tourists both domestically and overseas every year. With rich relics and materials about the two Chinese Kung Fu masters, you will have a good understanding of Ip Man and Wong Fei-hung. Ip Man is a great master of Wing Chun and also the master of Bruce Lee. Wong Fei-hung is a representative of Hung Boxing and good at lion dancing. If you are lucky, you may see the lion dancing performance here which is a fusion of Chinese folk art with Kung Fu. The lion dancers standing steadily on the wooden poles and hopping briskly from one to another. You will burst into cheers spontaneously for their fantastic performance.

Then you will go to Lingnan Tiandi for sightseeing. Lingnan Tiandi is a historical block gathering 22 outstanding ancient buildings. It is the epitome of Foshan as a thousand-year-old historical city and an ancient commercial hub. During the Qing Dynasty, this place was the living community of wealthy businessmen and dignitaries in Foshan. The most intact streets and ancient buildings of the Qing Dynasty are preserved here, and they are valuable physical materials for studying Foshan’s architectural and living customs. In 2008, to better protect these historical relics of Foshan, the Old City Reconstruction Project of Lingnan Tiandi was implemented, taking advantage of modern technologies to maintain and renovate the ancient buildings. Through this reconstruction project, the historical features of the old buildings and streets have been preserved to the greatest extent, and modern elements have also been added to increase its vitality. While strolling among the classic buildings, you will see some fashion shops, cafes, pubs, art galleries, and so on.

This afternoon, we will drive south for about an hour (40 kilometers) to visit Bruce Lee Paradise. Located near the ancestral home of Bruce Lee, it is surrounded by 22 hills and covered with dense forests and lakes, like a “resort away from the world”. The tallest bronze statue of Bruce Lee in the world, with a height of 18.8 meters, is standing in the square. There is also a Bruce Lee Memorial Hall in the park and it is the largest Bruce Lee memorial hall in the world. The hall focuses on exhibitions of Bruce Lee’s life stories, Kung Fu skills, movies, and family history. Bruce Lee’s legendary life as the “King of Kung Fu” will be fully displayed in front of you. You can also have a glimpse of some athletic equipment he used daily to imagine how he became a Kung Fu master.

After that you will be transferred back to your hotel.

Bruce Lee Paradise

Lingnan Tiandi

Author: Lingyun Zhou

Proofreader: Betsy He